Sunday, December 19, 2010

You may have noticed I often have an error or two in my posts. I swear to you I do edit them, but they just slip by me. If any agents or editors ever come to this blog, know my manuscripts are much more meticulous. Even so, I am amazed what I miss in a three-hundred page manuscript. So thank heaven for editors like Cindy Davis.

This is the woman assigned to me by The Wild Rose Press when they contracted Goals for a Sinner. She is the one who made it flow like a well-run play in football. No awkward sentence escaped her. And I have learned "towards" should never be used. I have an great fondness for "towards". She also displayed a fine sense of humor and a willlingness to let me argue a point I did not think should be changed. I dreaded the editing process, but found it really did make my book better. Cindy made it painless.

Imagine my joy when L & L Dreamspell signed Wish for A Sinner and hired Cindy as my editor again. This book is twice as long as Goals, but the three edits went just as smoothly. I was fortunate to have her services provided by my publishers, but she does freelance as The Fiction Doctor,www.fiction-doctor.com, if anyone out there needs some extra help polishing their manuscript. You are in good hands with Cindy.

I really should go back and correct all the picky little erros in these posts, but hey, I'd rather be working on my next book.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

My editor warned me that libraries are the worst sites to sell books, but I went anyway when offered a free table to sign Goals for a Sinner just after Thanksgiving. I joined eight other authors, mostly self or e-pubbed, in a broad hallway between the children's department and the DVD collection. Didn't take me long to realize that people come to libraries to borrow books, not buy them. Maybe not my target audience.

Young mothers who looked like they could use a light, spicy read scurried past practically shielding the eyes of their tots from my cover of the half-naked, ripped guy that is somewhat hotter than the actual book. Whole families with DVDs stacked up to their chins for free weekend viewing stayed out in the middle of the aisle. Most of the authors sold two or three books, including one old gentleman with a self-pubbed tome of inspirational messages. He told me later that one copy was stolen, but figured the person must have needed it really badly. I sold nary a one, but at least I wasn't ripped off.

On the plus side since I was in the city, I finished my Christmas shopping afterward. That put me in the mood to do good. The next day, I went to sign up to be a bone marrow donor-and found out my bone marrow is too old. How depressing. But ever shameless, I did tell the volunteers that one of the characters in my sequel, Wish for a Sinner, had been saved by a bone marrow transplant and handed out my promotional cards. You would think after all the research I did on that subject, I would have known my bone marrow had expired. Will I get any sales from my generous impluse to help or my nerve in handing out the sexy guy cards at a charity event? Only time will tell.